


this silence must be conquered

by Radiolaria



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confrontations, Emotional Manipulation, Episode Tag, F/F, Gen, Love Confessions, Missing Scene, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Requited Unrequited Love, Swearing, more like past, the emperor wants to play alpha female and it backfires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15086555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: Between shifts, Michael helps the Emperor slip into Philippa’s skin while the Emperor tries to get under Michael’s. The Emperor doesn’t like what she finds there.Set between 1x14 and 1x15.





	this silence must be conquered

**Author's Note:**

> Way back after the show's finale, I was trying to find a way to explain the Emperor and Michael's overt aggressivity on deck after the backstage advices. This is my answer.
> 
> Title from _Le Silence de la Mer_ by Vercors, translated by Maria Jolas for LIFE magazine (11 oct. 1943)
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this, [oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu) and [nomisunrider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomisunrider/pseuds/nomisunrider) for their eyes and suggestions, and [Jennytheshipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennytheshipper/works) for the efficient beta.
> 
>  _The_ line from 1x04 exists so that I can overlook it entirely and I am doing just that.

“What in the world is this?” The Emperor hissed at the notes coming from her PADD.

 

“Jazz.” Michael kept her tone matter of fact, pretending the rhetorical question had not been the fourteenth gibe directed at her in the past half hour.

 

The Emperor —Philippa— stalked across her guest quarters, back and forth, her gait supple and cadenced under Michael’s watchful eyes, as if trying to make the room pitch for her. After the tightness of the cuirass that fit her like a second skin, her uniform was worn loose, half opened, blazing under the ultramarine of the light dampeners.

 

“Jazz? Really?” The Emperor’s lips curled and she tsked, putting an end to the song that had enlivened the dim-lit room for an instant. “Your Georgiou is even more tedious than your Admiral led me to believe.”

 

Michael sighed, immovable at her outpost back to the window. The comforting melodies she had caught so many times in her captain’s ready room seemed doleful when played with a deceitful purpose. Something so personal, joyful even, was suddenly mimicry of what had been. And ungraciously assimilated at that.

 

The Emperor was bored by her captain’s life.

 

“I banished it in my empire and I will take over this galaxy just to root out this evil.”

 

Michael levelled a stern look at her.

 

“Joking.” The Emperor stopped a few feet from Michael and cocked her head, almost gleeful. “Just so.”

 

She flashed a grin at Michael and resumed flicking through Philippa’s file. Considering the former tyrant’s knowledge of the quadrant, Starfleet could learn more from Georgiou than Georgiou would from them, but Michael’s frank disappointment in the Admiral’s desperate decision, combined with Saru’s misguided blame of Michael, was not facilitating any form of intelligence gathering at the moment. The Admiral had not exactly picked the most enthusiastic team for this effort in the first place. With Saru temporarily brooding and the bridge kept in the dark, they were not much of a team at all.

 

The atmosphere had been fraught, even before the wrong Philippa had given her first orders as reinstated captain, and Admiral Cornwell had sensed it the moment she stepped out on the bridge. For now, the Emperor had retired to her quarters in order to “freshen up”, the only one of the Admiral's suggestions that Michael deemed sensible.

 

The Admiral, out of guilt for leaving the hazardous situation in Saru and Michael’s hands, had advised them to double check the Emperor’s preparations and make sure she would not expose her identity to the crew. As they were bidding farewell to Katrina Cornwell, Saru had respectfully declined taking part in the lesson, all too aware that the steeliness he previously displayed in front of the Emperor would not weather a tête-à-tête in her room.

 

Michael, for her part, had already spent more time than she could endure with her friend’s ghost to be able to tolerate the hoax for a few days.

 

Lost in her analysis of the files, the Emperor grimaced in a manner Michael had begun to grow accustomed to. The easiness with which disgust crept on her face was unnerving. Each rictus and glower hacked at Michael’s confidence a little more, chipping at the memory of her captain.

 

“Really? That’s what her consort looked like?” Georgiou grunted and tossed the reading device on the bed. It bounced back with a deflated sound. “And here I was imagining a Greek god befitting of a Starfleet war hero.”

 

“Not to your taste?” Michael teased, ice cold. She had little tolerance for what she suspected had been a move on the Emperor’s part to regain her freedom. Her help would extend as far as the Emperor’s comfortable shackles —and Michael’s watch over her. This venture into identity theft was merely the Admiral’s idea of professionalism in the face of desperation.

 

“An honourable and brilliant man. And unless you took your name from the corpse of a defeated general, you probably had the same consort at some point, _Philippa_.”

 

The Emperor’s eyes were merciless. There was no warmth there, none of the curiosity or  impressed annoyance Michael had glimpsed back in the other universe, where hope for redemption had started forming in Michael’s heart. Here, Philippa saw Michael as an adversary, perhaps not one who would kill her, but one to subdue before she subdued her.

 

Michael’s grip tightened on her wrist behind her back.

 

If the lesson could help Michael understand a little more about the Terran Emperor, she would bear it. She caught a glimpse of a strange life, made of veils and brutality, an outlandish stability in the chaos that Michael was afraid to admit as inherent to her Philippa as well. The similarities between their worlds —miracles, some might say— were more alarming than the differences.

 

The possibility of a Nikos in the Emperor’s world, like an Amanda, made her blood run cold.

 

“I believe my captain was quite fond of him.”

 

“You _believe_ …” The Emperor started and Michael felt under the watch of a bird of prey, seconds before attack. A shiver ran across her spine, but her eyes remained focused. “How long did you spend with her exactly? Not that I’m suggesting a recount of your respectful admiration from the low ranks.”

 

“Seven years. And even as an ensign, I was led to work with her on several occasions. I have known her a long time.”

 

Georgiou’s eyebrows shot up and she sniggered, before strutting to the nook where she had stashed Lorca’s spirits. Sitting in the captain’s chair on the most powerful ship in Starfleet, a mere day after narrowly escaping a violent coup, had emboldened her.

 

“Favoritism? Perhaps your Georgiou spoke my language after all.”

 

“No.” Michael’s controlled rebuttal sounded oddly booming to her ears. “The bulk of the missions she had to conduct around that time required a qualified xenoanthropologist. I was the best aboard the _Shenzhou_. She trusted my judgement from the start.”

 

_And, sadly, till the end._

 

“It is the most efficient way to secure your council’s loyalty.”

 

“She did not need to resort to such tricks to ensure loyalty.”

 

The Emperor’s narrowed her eyes and Michael stiffened under her scrutiny. She had interrupted her course round the room and the prospect of having her circle Michael instead, scouting for weaknesses and pressure points, was not attractive.

 

“I am missing something here, am I not? Michael, what are you hiding?”

 

“Nothing that you need to know to accomplish your task. I would like my story with her to remain mine.”

 

The Emperor’s lips stretched in a thin smile that bared a shard of teeth, and she pointed at the door with her glass.

 

“What if the red one—“

 

“Lieutenant Keyla Detmer,“ Michael scolded.

 

The Emperor sneered. “We’ll see about that. What if your lieutenant recalls that night many moons ago when we besieged a citadel on Andor? I do require details. ”

 

“Philippa Georgiou never besieged any citadel that I know of,” Michael calmly answered, straightening her back. “And Lieutenant Detmer will not ask because she has no reason to casually inquire about an event you experienced together.”

 

The Emperor was sipping her drink, her mocking eyes above the rim not leaving Michael.

 

_She will not mystify anyone at this pace. The experiment is bound to detonate._

 

“Or was she scared of your Georgiou? Perhaps she feared your Federation _gold star_ war hero?”

 

Her tone was voracious, as if she had just smelt blood, a trail to follow to the wounded animal.

 

“I assume it would be a redeeming quality for you?”

 

“In this soft universe? I hope she was not as naïve as you believe me to be.”

 

Michael worked her jaws, summoning every bit of patience she could find.

 

“Philippa Georgiou was beloved among the crewmembers and treated them as family. I expect you to be kinder to them, more patient at least. She was infinitely patient.” Michael had whispered the last sentence, wishing, as the words escaped her mouth, that the Emperor would not grasp them.

 

An attentive false Philippa Georgiou would be more perilous than a bored one.

 

The Emperor clicked her tongue. “How disappointing.”

 

The Emperor’s fingers caressed the edge of a book Michael had given her Philippa and Michael shivered, seized with a fear as small as a cut on Philippa’s finger. The thought of her body hurt, _Philippa’s body_ damaged, however superficial the wound, terrified her. The resemblance suddenly seemed inconvenient, silly. The Emperor had so little to do to convince a heart like Michael’s, deprived of her captain for so long, that Philippa lived, somehow, in her.

 

Michael gathered the books to relocate them on the bedside table, far from the Emperor’s claws. Georgiou shot Michael a curious glance before resuming her nonchalant pacing.

 

“People aren’t that different from my world to yours, really. Not at heart. Your _father_ seemed quite the measly kind of meddling peace-puppet in both worlds.”

 

Michael’s lips pressed firmly together and her hands gripped the books tighter. How did the Emperor gather enough on her foster father to form such a judgement? Did they meet after the interview with Admiral Cornwell? If so, Sarek had agreed to play a dangerous game, one an ambassador of his experience surely was cognisant of, but Michael would have to grapple with its ramifications presently, reluctantly, blindly.

 

Pawn in a political game, again.

 

The similarities between her foster father in the two universes had haunted her ever since they encountered the rebels. Everyone she knew had been drastically different, except him.

 

She shook her head, pushing away the Emperor’s obvious attempt at destabilising her.

 

“ _She_ was different. Which means you will have to work a little harder, _Philippa_.” Michael enunciated the name while stacking books on the nightstand. They were works Michael had spied in her captain’s hand at one point or another and, given Philippa’s propensity for displaying her literary affections, staging an inner life would benefit their experiment greatly, however short the Emperor’s stay.

 

Not that the Emperor was putting much effort in slipping into her counterpart’s skin. She was stalking across the room, cradling Lorca’s brandy in her hand, disparagingly reciting highlights of Philippa’s career, when Philippa would have been facing Michael and listening attentively, tea left aside, all hers.

 

The Admiral’s familiarity with Philippa would have been welcome, yet, after introducing her false Philippa, the shuttle had immediately taken off. The Admiral was, for lack of a better world, testy upon farewells. Was it the war and its outcome or the ghost of her former classmate? Michael could not tell. But the exchange leading to presenting the Emperor with the Federation’s plan and the subsequent transformation of the Emperor into Philippa must have been uneasy, all the more so because, if one had to accept the existence of a different universe filled with ghosts, Katrina Cornwell would have preferred to contend with Lorca’s return rather than Philippa’s.

 

No ship is too large for gossip.

 

“Could you at least bother to speak a little higher and growl a little less?” Michael urged her, voice heavy with lassitude. “My Philippa would never do that.”

 

“I bet she did, just not _to you_ , Michael.”

 

Her hands stopped fussing with the books at the open hostility in the Emperor’s voice. Michael turned to face the Emperor and braced herself for the onslaught evident on her sneering face.

 

“Do you think she had benevolent intentions toward everyone? Do you think she never felt the need to intimidate or to inspire fear? Do you think she got to the Captain’s chair by adopting orphans and kissing her enemies?” The Emperor’s falsely concerned frown smoothed into a lewd arch. “Do you think she never fucked anyone?”

 

Michael whimpered as if struck.

 

A blaze of rage surged inside her, powerful enough to overcome her control and send her at the Emperor’s throat in a blink. Crudeness was not the tactic Michael had expected this early in the process, but she had expected it. Yet, nothing could have prepared her for the pain and searing anger she felt before this further defiling of Philippa. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and did not hit the Emperor.

 

“Philippa, _please._ ”

 

“I see. You are comfortable listing her life accomplishments, yet regarding her as a carnal, real and complex being is impossible. The Federation taught you to lie to preserve appearance of purity, nurturing passivity and meagerness of spirit. You are deaf to your ambition like idle children playing in the mudd and blind to your desires like trained pets kept in apartments. Pathetic,” Georgiou scoffed.

 

“I suspected it. Yet I did not expect my counterpart to be as disappointing as your world.”

 

Michael realised, petrified, that Philippa had identified her weak spot and was about to attack, with words much more acidic, ready to tear at Michael. Her pain was clawing at her throat for a way out and Michael knew it was enough to shut off the Emperor’s outburst, but she could not be the one to break first.

 

“My Michael was perfectly aware of the consorts, the decisions, the _heads_ I took. She may have been gullible to Gabriel’s lies, but she never wrapped me in blindsided veneration like you do your captain. She feared me and she was magnificent. Living by Starfleet’s rules…”

 

Her mirthless laughter rang out, sinister.

 

“Your captain was begging for approval, too much of a coward to be her own master. She was as self-serving as you perceive us Terran to be, and so much _weaker_. She wasn’t worth any of the sacrifices you made.”

 

“Philippa!” Michael’s voice was trembling with such dense anger that the Emperor stopped dead in her tracks and stared back at her, startled.

 

Michael closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before talking.

 

“You do not know her. And she is dead. I – _we_ have a right to preserve and cherish whatever little we have left of her. It is not blindness to seek and hang onto the better parts of people.”

 

The Emperor studied her in silence before resuming her walk and Michael was seized with a blazing urge to throw herself in her way and grab her by the shoulder to straighten her gait.

 

_Do not walk like this, do not stand like this, do not breathe like this._

 

It would be so easy for Michael to yield and unmask her before the whole crew, strangling the operation at birth. After everything the ship had gone through, they would not have followed another despot.

 

Michael did not want to fight with her, however badly she needed to, because she was alive where Philippa was dead and deaf to the cry for help of the Federation. The Emperor had been one of the few people who had not asked anything from her, only provided, despite her reticence. And here she was, again, providing them with answers.

 

Like Philippa would have done.

 

_As much as I am testing her, she is testing me, nothing more. We need her._

 

Michael picked up the PADD and used it to gesture to the Emperor to give up the glass. She stood in the centre of the room, hoping that placing herself in the Emperor’s way would help her focus on the task at hand.

 

Knowing Philippa.

 

But Michael could not focus anymore.

 

“Do you hate her so that you try to defile my memory of her?” Her voice sounded like a plea to her ears.

 

“I don’t hate her. I find her disgusting. Her morals, her medals, her ponytail.” Georgiou aggressively flipped the hair above her shoulder with her free hand, the soft and familiar curls Michael had so often brushed. ”Her life was a waste of what seemed like a perfectly efficient body and intellect and for wh—“

 

Michael lurched forward, only stopping herself a feet away from collaring the Emperor against the nearest wall. The Emperor frowned at her, arms relaxed along her body in a posture that was more innate to Philippa than anything she tried to mimic at the start of this session.

 

Aggression was a natural state.

 

“And I don’t like the way she affected you,” she whispered, voice low, eyes disapproving, the almost playful bite of her previous recriminations gone. “You started a war for her. Under different circumstances, I should commend you for such an initiative, but the lack of control displayed does not please me.”

 

Michael was trembling, not out of anger, but of exhaustion and defeat. Under her ugliness and brutality, the Emperor kept on pouring such raw affection into her and Michael hated her for it.

 

“ _My actions_ do not have to please or not please you, because _I_ am not your Michael.” Her voice was still shaking. “Now, go back to work. You will not be able to convince anyone on that bridge if you hold her life in such contempt, if you hold our — _my_ — values in such contempt. Take your pick. Your scorn or my attention. Am _I_ worth your time?”

 

The Emperor glowered at Michael without a word. The array of emotions on her face spoke for her, of her frustration, her calculations and her bothersome dedication to Michael. There was no attempt at concealing any of it, laid open in her eyes and the tension of her jaw.

 

Philippa had never been this easy to decypher.

 

“So, you will take time for her as well,” Michael resumed, schooling her tone and face to achieve a semblance of control. “She was an exceptional captain, and a greater woman. In ways you cannot begin to understand.”

 

“She is a dead captain whose first officer started an ill-prepared war, a dead-end,” Georgiou spat in Michael’s direction.

 

Michael saw the taunt, but she was too tired not to let the attack run out. If this was about knowing Georgiou, so be it; she would let the argument tear the Emperor’s walls down, force her to reveal herself, even if it meant getting skinned in the process.

 

“I’d say by your Federation’s standards,” Georgiou gnarled, “there was little greatness to admire there. She is a dead medal on someone’s chest for Starfleet to pick and stick to another soldier. I could have found a use for her in my world, for a short while. But she was not a ruler, she was a puppet. As for the woman, I can only say she left you like _this_.”

 

“Like _this_ ?” Michael cried, taking one step closer to the Emperor. “I fooled everyone in your universe, walked back, welcome, into your palace, as a traitor, helped you defend your ship against Lorca and _I_ saved _you_ .” Her face distorted with spite for the Emperor, for her own lack of control. She was too tired to disguise it. “ _I_ was smarter and stronger than _she_ ever was. _I_ loved _you_ more.”

 

The Emperor did not show Michael the mercy of restraint and grabbed Michael by the arm, steel-gripped, jolting Michael’s body against hers and Michael had a moment of panic when she thought the Emperor would strangle her. The PADD clattered on the floor, her uniform scratched her skin as Georgiou’s knuckles dug deep into Michael’s flesh and the room suddenly seemed as small as a cell. But Georgiou’s eyes, up close, were glossy.

 

“Don’t you dare talk about my Michael like that.” The threat was a whisper, white hot anger instantly melted into hurt. “Ever again.”

 

Michael considered asking what was hidden behind her last words, but probing further meant unveiling more about her as well. She toyed with the idea of experimenting with the extent of her grip on the Emperor’s emotions, but this was a safeguard to keep for later.

 

“That’s what I thought.” Michael said in a detached tone, finding strength in the Emperor’s loss of control. How changed Michael was by this Philippa. “You are right; your universe and mine are not so different. _We do not talk ill of the dead_.”

 

The fury unfurling in the Emperor’s eyes was aimless and inescapable as if too large for her own body, but it was of a different nature from her previous attacks. There was no posture or menace in her sharp grip, only pain.

 

Pity, briefly, intensely, was the sole emotion Michael could experience in front of the Emperor.

 

“You are hurt and do not want to remember. I can understand, believe me.”

 

The Emperor grimaced and released her, half-heartedly. She turned her back to Michael and picked the PADD from the floor.

 

They stayed, eyes averted, for a while, both steadying their breath, Michael silently cataloguing all the ways in which Philippa would have resolved this situation without hurting herself. It was one trick Philippa could never teach her well enough, no matter how gently, pragmatically or unexpectedly she tried. Or she was better at keeping her pain in check.

 

Born and raised on Earth, Philippa was better at keeping many emotions in check that Michael failed to hide.

 

Behind her, the Emperor’s breath sounded like hers, drawing Michael’s attention.

 

Philippa’s shoulders, almost naked without the armour, were rising and falling in short in-takes. Her Philippa had the same way of avoiding her gaze when she needed to gather herself. With her back to her, the long hair cascading down the fitting —so painfully fitting— uniform, Michael could almost trick herself into believing her Philippa was back, within reach.

 

She took a deep breath, checked the time, smoothed her uniform and secured the zip slightly undone in the tangle.

 

“Shall we carry on with the test?”

 

The Emperor looked over her shoulder, lifting an incredulous eyebrow at her.

 

_We are becoming good at admitting this charade does not matter._

 

“Do I have a choice?” Georgiou hissed, before waving a hand in the air. “Yes, why don’t we? It’s not like there’s any fun around here.”

 

Michael was about to clasp her hands behind her back, but the Emperor handed the PADD to her, insisting when Michael look inquiringly at her hands. The Emperor walked to the centre of the room and remained still, partially turned away from Michael. Michael frowned but did not comment on the change in tactics.

 

“How does she take her coffee?”

 

“She favours green tea.” The Emperor’s voice was flat.

 

“What protocol to follow in case of engine failure?”

 

“15-89.”

 

“Who is her Number One?”

 

The Emperor looked at her sideways and hollowed her cheeks.

 

“Why are we talking about her in the present? She’s nothing but ashes. And I’m her.”

 

Michael pursed her lips not to scream.

 

“Nice deflection, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Qo'noS, Regina Andor. If you can recall your many names, you can say his: Saru. And her body was never recovered,” she added in the same breath, used to the pain her failure brought. The loss of her body was part of her world like the Sun on Earth. Her failures, her war, all things she needed to fix with lies.

 

“When was she born?”

 

The Emperor gave her a nasty glance. They had established early in the interview that, due to the chaotic administration of her universe, Georgiou was not exactly sure of her date of birth, a blank she found rightfully preposterous for an emperor.

 

“July 31, 2202,” she bit back. “No one in their right mind would require this information of me. Her authentication numbers are more important, so could we move along? Your Admiral’s briefing was already _quite_ complete. Did you take care of the genetic markers?”

 

“They will not be a problem, Philippa,” Michael absently replied.

 

Although she would not dare to imagine she had tamed the beast, she was beginning to sense they had gained ground in the past hour. The Emperor feared the pain she could inflict on her and, to an extent, feared Michael. In her world, fear was the same as respect. Michael did not need the Emperor to love her like she did her Michael, just not to destroy everything Michael loved in this world, including Philippa’s memory.

 

“Do you have any other question?”

 

“What is the rank of the red one again?”

 

Michael looked up at her in astonishment and the Emperor heaved a sigh, irritated. _Only_ irritated. Her subdued attitude bordered on threatening.

 

“The other one,” she flatly said.

 

“ _Cadet Tilly_. You could also learn the Federation ranks. Do not go around referring to her as Captain Killy, I beg of you.”

 

The Emperor’s face was turned toward her chest, lost in thoughts and something Michael could not quite identify. Her hair was not hiding her expression as it used to when it hung around her face, darker and heavier, like curtains.

 

“Nicknames?”

 

“You do not need them.”

 

Michael checked ship stats on the screen. They would need to have a conversation about the energy required to keep this room appropriately lit because it was draining an absurd amount of power.

 

“Did you love her?”

 

Michael’s breath was caught in her throat, strangled, and she looked up from the PADD.

 

“She was my captain, of course I did. Why would you ask?”

 

The Emperor turned to face her, not coming closer as Michael had seen her threaten many people before her. The stillness was far more disturbing.

 

“Because, dear Michael who is so _very_ different from my Michael,” Georgiou started, so softly that Michael could feel the edge of slight panic in her voice, concealed under the evenness. “I’ve been trying, at your request, for the past hour, to immerse myself in your captain’s life and understand her, so that this game sanctioned by your Federation Admiral can be played.”

 

Michael swallowed. It was preposterous to imagine her defenses would hold longer than the Terran Empire had before Philippa.

 

“And I have skimmed over the honours, listened to the recordings, endured the speeches, spoilt my appearance and have understood everything there is for me to understand about her.”

 

Her brows briefly furrowed, a spasm on her cold, expressionless face, and she took a step back to look carefully at Michael.

 

“Except you. I don’t understand how _you_ fit into her life as I understand it; your actions, her words about you, the way you look at her, at my face. So, Michael Burnham, were you enamoured with my counterpart?”

 

She ended her attack in such a low register that Michael could barely distinguish her words, but the venom in her eyes told volumes.

 

Michael did not answer, simply stared at the Emperor’s face, watching the mixture of disgust and incomprehension take over the familiar features.

 

Georgiou never looked more different from Philippa in that moment where Michael had bared her soul. Philippa had been patient, infinitely. Under other circumstances, Michael would have taken time to write down the variation of emotions in the impostor’s face because, even alien and unforgiving, Philippa’s face was still the most beautiful subject of study.

 

That her affection for her captain had survived the exposure to the Emperor surely was the most pyrrhic of victories in this instant.

 

As much as she disliked the Admiral’s plan, it had been set in motion and losing the Emperor’s support at this point would have catastrophic consequences.

 

The Admiral’s plan did not matter in the face of Michael’s exhaustion.

 

“I was _in love_ ,” Michael breathed, half-stunned. “‘Enamoured’ is an anathema in your mouth.”

 

The Emperor hissed and stepped away from her as if she had been burnt.

 

“I am not your Michael.” The words escaping her mouth struck her at last and she stumbled backwards, tears welling up as the tension in her body crumbled. “I was in love with her.”

 

She could not believe she had said it out loud. Not after so long. Not after the battle of the Binary Stars, not after prison, not after her loneliness, not after Ash. Yet, here they were, her words, their impact atrocious on the Emperor’s composure and Michael felt relieved to find confusion, fear and anger on Georgiou’s face, a mirror of Michael’s own when she had first understood.

 

Talking about _love_ had been insulting after what Michael had done to Philippa. Her energy after the Binary Stars went into keeping her sane, not fighting her heart and mind on whether or not she deserved to have loved, so she shoved everything away: Philippa, her will, her telescope, her memory. Only when Philippa had been within reach again had Michael sensed the violence of the repression; her broken knuckles and nose in exchange for Philippa’s insignia, and her nightmares and cracked ribs for bringing back Philippa’s ghost without her soul. She reasoned she had answered an irresistible and unequivocal call, the last onset of guilt.

 

But now, saying the word was exact and cathartic: she had been in love and everything fell into place, again.

 

“And you are not _my_ Philippa.” She shook her head, finding her feet anchored to the ground for the first time in days.

 

“That much is obvious,” the Emperor grumbled, her aggression vaporized. The lilt in her voice was almost sarcastic. “At least it clarifies our position.”

 

Michael wanted to laugh.

 

_When would she ever catch a break?_

 

The Emperor was selfish even faced with such a confession. She seemed to understand it as something taken from her, a pound of flesh used as fuel, something she could have exploited and was deprived of.

 

She sat sulking on the side of the bed, prostrate as Michael had found her back aboard the Charon after Lorca slaughtered her guard. Michael had wiped her plans out this time, thoroughly. It had never crossed the Emperor’s mind that _this_ Michael could feel different towards _that_ Philippa. At least, whatever she had in the works for the two of them had been defused for now.

 

Michael walked toward the bed, where she threw the PADD, and looked down on Georgiou, arms crossed on her chest.

 

“You are reacting better than I expected.”

 

“I don’t know how to use this piece of information,” the Emperor conceded, reproach in her voice, but for herself rather than Michael. “You are _not_ my Michael. Truly, I am surprised you revealed such an important piece of intelligence to me. You don’t trust me and you gave me leverage there.”

 

Michael scoffed.

 

“I am surprised you ever showed the colour of your deep bond with your daughter to me, considering what it cost you. Yet, here we are.”

 

The Emperor looked daggers at Michael, but her posture on the bed and her apparent disarray made her stare considerably less threatening. Michael doubted she would have an opportunity to catch her off-guard like that in the future, whatever the future held for them.

 

“I never hid the intensity of my bond with her from you,” she added softly. “Knowing the exact nature of our weaknesses does not expunge them.”

 

The Emperor looked down at the hands on her knees. Michael could see the tremor there.

 

“Did she know?”

 

“This is not relevant information.”

 

The Emperor grunted, with a hint of relief. They were back to their old games from thirty minutes ago. Michael could do that; she felt strong enough now.

 

“Did _anybody_ know?”

 

“For the longest time, I did not,” Michael reflected, letting memories of kinder times brush her mind. Shore leaves, gamma shifts, breakfasts. The brush of her hand and her heart racing. The curve of her smile and her soul nourished. Being with her.

 

Michael briefly squinted her eyes shut, only to open them on the Emperor’s troubled gaze inspecting her.

 

“But I am a different person now.”

 

When the Emperor ordered her with a nod to sit at her side, Michael did not move. Philippa raised an eyebrow.

 

“So she didn’t know.” A flame was lit in her eyes, deadly, and Michael feared for the life of someone already dead. ”She better never have considered you her daughter.”

 

“It would have been disrespectful to my parents, both biological and adoptive, and Philippa was not in the habit of taking what was not hers.”

 

“Still, wasn’t she a mentor? The reports say you were her protégée, her pupil.”

 

“They would. It makes for a cautionary tale pulling at one’s heartstring. I met her well into adulthood. To her credit, she always considered me a peer, often a friend. If ever ‘daughter’ was in her mouth, it was a rebuttal rather than a term of endearment. A way to remind me that I was not to… pursue her.”

 

“Were you planning to?”

 

Philippa sounded so outraged that Michael had to suppress a laugh.

 

“My foster mother, Amanda —she was human too—, always reminded me to be straightforward in my affection, even if expressing it is laborious or inadequate. I believed my actions around Philippa spoke loud enough of my feelings for her to know. Philippa knew. But she was strict and I was quiet.”

 

Michael trailed off, conscious of Emperor’s gaze on her, heavy and curious, unlike anything she had previously been subjected to by the tyrant, as if Philippa was genuinely interested in the life Michael had and how that differed from her Michael’s; as if loves and family were not levers to pull; as if the Emperor cared about memories that were not testaments to her supposed dedication to the Empire.

 

Irrepressibly, Michael felt the tug of memories on her mind, the temptation to retreat in those rare moments to a place where her quietness had been rewarded. The slow burn, long burn, of her love for her captain was not the most secure or sensible combination, especially on the same ship, but she had it for several years. She was not the first to burn and certainly would not be the last. Extinguishing the brazier would take longer.

 

It was a long defeat in the telling and they had a war to end.

 

“You do not need to know more,” Michael quietly said.

 

She already had told everything within the Emperor’s grasp at this stage, given the heart and scars she had. Michael still hoped to make her understand many things, about Philippa without Michael, about love without chaos, without shackles and words, without fear and commitment. Later. Anyone who reminded Michael of Philippa, even a little, deserved to see the world as she did. Someone with her face had a duty to honour her memory.

 

The Emperor was staring at her through Philippa’s eyes, cold and malicious, but worried and questioning.

 

“I don’t think I want to know more. To think my relationship with Michael seemed complicated.”

 

_So much to learn._

 

“She stabbed you in the back because you were her mother.” Michael chewed on her lower lip, pensive.

 

Their filial relation was still the most incongruous element of this sword-wielding, unmoved, intolerant reflection of Philippa. From the moment the Emperor had called her “daughter” Michael had understood the maze of their relationship would become trickier to navigate. Her story with Philippa was drastically different from what the Emperor had with her Michael.

 

“I would say it is not unusual or complicated, certainly not in this world, I cannot see how it would be in yours.”

 

“You stabbed your Philippa in the heart, if the accounts of your mutiny are to be trusted,” the Emperor’s snapped back, but her words immediately softened, worry creeping in. “Will you be the death of me too?”

 

_I already was._

 

“It is up to you.”

 

“Good.” There was no trace of relief or anticipation on her face. “I like a challenge.”

 

A quiet voice in Michael’s mind kept coming back to invasive species that, uprooted, can either thrive or wither without an explanation. Very little in Michael’s universe would provide a hold for the Emperor’s imperialistic tendencies. And if she found such ground, she was almost guaranteed to be caught by Starfleet and sentenced to a life in prison. Michael may have condemned the ghost of Philippa to a life of deterioration in the hands of Starfleet, in her hands. She deserved the sentence, but not in this world, not in the world where Philippa was no more.

 

Their world, for better or for worse, needed a Philippa, however distorted. Michael needed her, however dangerous.

 

The power Georgiou held over her heart was not in her similarity with Philippa, but in her dissemblance: her ability to get under Michael’s skin and shatter her grasp on her reason in a way Philippa had elicited only once in their seven years together.

 

At the Binary Stars.

 

It had cost Philippa her life.

 

The Emperor, somehow, was _a_ Philippa, and for Michael, after a year of distress and guilt, it was enough. It was everything. Michael was responsible for her, her actions and changes of heart. Michael was responsible for this person walking around with Philippa on her face. She brought her into this world; she had a duty of care.

 

_She probably thinks the same of me, indirectly._

 

They stared at each other in silence, the Emperor surely making elaborate schemes to get out of her situation, Michael anticipating the show they were about to perform on the bridge. Cruelty and indifference would take over the minute Georgiou would sit in the chair and Michael would have to drag her, with her teeth, toward decency.

 

Michael was a little more ready for it than an hour ago.

 

“I do not trust you,” Michael warned her. “There are only so many protective measures I can take against your face and I know you will exploit my weakness at every turn. I will not put you or our present mission at risk, but I will be keeping a close watch on you. I loved her and for you to know this does endanger the universe. And _me_ . You would hurt _me_. But I am not your Michael. Now, what do you plan to do with those pieces of information, Philippa?”

 

The Emperor did not answer, instead looked at her with a latence resembling defensiveness,  annoyance and fear. The combination was new and Michael felt somewhat invigorated.

 

“The lesson is over. I will be waiting for you on the bridge.”

Michael headed toward the door without the Emperor’s answer.

**Author's Note:**

> On July 31, 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's plane took off from Corsica, never to land again. If you are familiar with Saint-Exupéry's war works and his humanism, you know just how perfect a match he is for Philippa.


End file.
